Tick tock, tick tock, the clock is always ticking in this bomb squad drama starring Line of Duty’s Vicky McClure, which is great for the scriptwriter who has to keep the drama content high.
We open with taxi driver Ned trapped in his cab and quickly learn that he has upset someone badly enough to plant a bomb that will blow Ned all the way to that great Hackney cab company in the sky. What has Ned done to deserve this? ‘Confess!’ says the note on his taxi. To what fiddling his meter? Failing to take the shortest routes?
And that’s the same message, which is directed at older lady Agnes, who also discovers that she’s about to be bombed into oblivion, but likely to drown first.
But while this drama is big on messages, the script is largely preposterous. And because the storyline is hokum, the series, once again relies heavily on the charisma of McClure’s character, Lana Washington.
Yet, there’s an issue with that; Lana, who is co-codamol dependent, is written in heavily as rebel – perhaps not the best mindset to have when dealing with live explosives; it’s a bit like expecting someone with vertigo to work as a roofer. And her off-her-headness is confirmed right from the start when she takes off her protective suit so she can ‘move a little more freely while dismantling the bomb bits.’
“Come on, Vicky your head’s about to be dismantled from the rest of your body if you make a mistake here! Put the suit back on!” shouts those on the viewing couch. Or very soon the crime scene will look like an abattoir!”
Already this is fanciful series looks to have bombed.
Trigger Point (Image: ITV)
Space. The final frontier. We need to go there. We have to go there. And boy does this message come at you at warp speed in this slick four-part documentary series.
Thanks to some well-crafted interviews with those who were part of the space drive, we understand the passion for space exploration felt by the likes of Anna Fisher.
Fisher grew up in Texas, in a middle-class suburb and almost everyone in the local area worked at NASA. This was America in which chemistry teachers taught teenagers how to make rocket fuel and complicit parents helped their spaceboy sons to fly mini (but extremely dangerous) mini- rockets in the desert.
Fisher, we learned, was connected to the space launch centre the way Scots kids are connected to the local baths or the library. And when the chance came to become an astronaut, she grabbed at it like there was no tomorrow. B
But the problem for the watching world was that Fisher planned to leave her one-year-old daughter behind on Earth while she joined the space shuttle Discovery to fly amongst the stars.
And with a disaster rate predicted at four percent, there may not be a tomorrow for Anna, who was considered by many to be an unfit mother, the Sue Ellen of the space world.
Yet, this doc revealed other dimensions to the fixation with the stars. The space race was considered to be the Cold War in space. Many Americans, believing in an existentialist threat couldn’t bear to see the Russians win – and the arms race was extended into space. “The shuttles carried secret satellites,” said one former astronaut. But we also picked up hints of imperialism.
And there was also sexism to contend with, from the NASA men who wouldn’t trust a woman to drive a bus, never mind a space shuttle.
And what of black America? We discovered that in the Sixties and Seventies black teenagers were captured by the symbolism attached to Star Trek’s iconic black character, Ltn Uhura. But could black teenage boys expect to become an astronaut, and fly off to space? There was more chance of Spock and Kirk becoming lovers.
Read more:
But then the space shuttle programme recruited scientists, not pilots, and it featured a diversity prerogative. As a result, Ron McNair made it, beating off 10,000 applicants. The achievement changed the expectations of black America. “From slave to space in four generations.”
Yet, while the documentary captures perfectly the soaring hopes and expectations of so many young Americans, it also rewinds on the massive sense of disappointment felt when the space programme was cancelled after the Challenger explosion in 1986. Astronauts were in disbelief. “It was like Rocky got knocked down and didn’t get up again,” said the late Ron McNair’s brother.
Described as ‘intimate and heartfelt’ this claim for the programme seemed rather boastful and incongruous, given that Tom the Voice hasn’t in the past been either of the two in terms of openness, and certainly not given to great levels of introspection.
Instead, we were subjected to lots of self-serving banality. “I was always confident as a child because if I sang people would listen,” said the former Tom Woodward, who then added, “I grew up surrounded by love. And when my cousin got married and I sang, he threw a cap on the floor and people threw money in it.”
We were then offered Wiki level biography material such as, “I started to work in the clubs, and I joined a local group playing them, all over South Wales.”
Yes, Tom Jones did have a voice louder than a mine collapse. But in this show, it’s not used to tell us something we didn’t already know. He talked about meeting manager Gordon Mills, singing with Decca. And we saw lots of good early footage. We were told his first single flopped, but the second he demoed, It’s Not Unusual, had been written for Sandie Shaw.
What emerges is not Jones insight but more of an underlining, that the singer has a great baritone/tenor voice, but it wasn’t right for rock n’roll. He’s an early Alfie Boe, with a bit more sex appeal, he’s MOR pop for the mums. And he’s a whinger. In the Seventies, Jones he didn’t have the hits and turned to ‘fluff’ and variety TV. “I realised TV was a big thing.” No, really?
But the lack of good songs wasn’t his fault. He complains about not been given the hits. He’s a big man who doesn’t seem big on personal responsibility.
What did we learn from this woeful excuse for a documentary? If you’re looking for insight and reflections on the life of Tom Jones, the last person you should talk to is Tom Jones.
